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The Theories of Hermann Aubin Critically Considered
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
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Germany, the homeland of particularism, is in many ways also the homeland of regionalism. On all kinds of German regions there exists an absolutely staggering wealth of assorted literature. Towering above this multitudinous evidence of local pride and local patriotism stands the work done by a group of German scholars who labored together on the task of finding in the region, the Raum, the Landschaft, the meaningful unit for historical study. Their work is associated most closely with the name of Hermann Aubin. This paper is intended to introduce to American students of economic history the work and ideas of Hermann Aubin and the men working directly or indirectly under Aubin's inspiration.
- Type
- Spacial Differentiation and Economic Growth
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1960
References
1 This search for a meaningful unit of study is essentially the same inquiry pursued by Toynbee in the introduction to his A Study of History (New York: Oxford, 1946)Google Scholar.
2 For this and the immediately following see H. Aubin, “Gemeinsam Erstrebtes, Umrisse eines Rechenschaftsberichts” in “Festschrift für Theodor Frings, 2. Teil; Rheinische Vierteljahresblätter (17, 3/4, 1952).
3 “Gemeinsam Erstrebtes”; see also Aubin, H., Frings, Th., Müller, J., Kulturströmungen und Kulturprovinzen in den Rheinlanden (Bonn, 1926)Google Scholar.
4 Kulturströmungen, Foreword.
5 Ibid.
6 Spiethoff, Arthur, “Pure Theory and Gestalt Theory” in Lane, and Riemersma, , editors, Enterprise and Secular Change (Homewood, Ill.: Free Press, 1953)Google Scholar.
7 “Die ökonomische Landschaft und die Gruppenstadt in der älteren Wirtschaftsgeschichte” in Aus Sozial und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Gedächtnisschrift für Georg von Below (Stuttgart, 1928) pp. 82–104Google Scholar.
8 See the discussion on ideal-typical exaggerations in Spiethoff, Pure Theory p. 454.
9 Häpke uses the strong term Zwangsverhältnisse for such interdependency.
10 At any rate, Professors Broude and Isard are vastly more competent to tackle this question.
11 Letter from H. Aubin to Fritz Redlich, Oct. 31, 1959.
12 Kulturströmungen, see also Aubin, , Frings, , Hansen, et al., Geschichte des Rheinlandes von der ältesten Zeit biszur Gegenwart, 2 vols., Vol. 2 Kulturgeschichte (Essen, 1922)Google Scholar.
13 Gemeinsam Erstrebtes.
14 A point on which, incidentally, Aubin finds the consent of Toynbee. In his introduction to A Study of History, p. 9, he refers to the lands along the Rhine as a “frontier” for the Roman Empire that became a “base line” for the new Western society; “… a rib from the side of the older society was fashioned into the backbone of a new creature of the same species.”
15 Gemeinsam Erstrebtes. Such cross-sectional surveys would enlarge the study of Kulturlandschaft into a study of Kulturmorphologie.
16 Such cross-sectional surveys lend themselves to cartographic presentation. Arthur H. Cole was kind enough to call to my attention the series of maps on rates of transportation in the United States in Paullin, Charles O., Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States (Washington: Carnegie Institution 1932)Google Scholar. Fortunately on our panel we have, in Professor Clark, an expert in this field.
17 Wirtschaftsgeschichte Westfalens in Leistung und Verflechtung mit den Nachbarländern, (Münster, 1949)Google Scholar. See also Kuske's important contributions to 8 Geschichte des Rheinlande, 12 above, and particularly to the great work Aubin, H.et al. Der Raum Westfalen, 4 Vols. Vol. 3, (Berlin, 1931 and later)Google Scholar.
18 Wirtschaftsgeschichte Westfalens, Foreword.